Matt Carlson: Gen Con 2021 – RPGs

Posted on October 30, 2021 by Matt J Carlson
An example animated map by Arkenforge.

Gen Con started out in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin a little over 50 years ago. It focused on wargames until the mid 70’s when the first tabletop role-playing game, Dungeons and Dragons, came onto the scene, quickly overtaking prominence at the convention. The role-playing side of things remains strong, even at this year’s reduced level of activity. While most of the gaming takes place outside the exhibit hall, there were still plenty of RPG-oriented booths to peruse. Here’s a sample of what I found… Boilerplate excuses for all errors contained within still apply.

Continue reading →
Posted in Convention Report, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Dale Yu – Review of the Holiday Hijinks Series  (Spoiler Free)

Posted on October 29, 2021 by Dale Yu

The Independence Incident / The Kringle Caper / The Pumpkin Problem

PXL_20211007_202915210

The Holiday Hijinks series are a set of three (so far) pocket sized escape room/puzzles.  I first encountered The Indepence Incident after a friend received it as a gift from the Gathering of Friends.  We brought it to the table as an opener for game night, and we were quite impressed with the challenges provided by this small packet of 18 cards.  The idea here is an “Escape room” of sorts- with the goal being to get though the deck to the last card.

Continue reading →

Posted in Essen 2021, Reviews | Leave a comment

2020 Game Awards Summary

Posted on October 28, 2021 by huzonfirst

With the announcement yesterday of the Meeples Choice Awards results, the last of the 2020 primary and secondary Game of the Year awards have now been set. So this seems like a good time to summarize which titles have been honored by the various awards over the course of the year.

  • SdJ Family:
    • Spiel des Jahres – MicroMacro: Crime City
    • Kennerspiel – Paleo
    • Kinderspiel – Dragomino
  • DSP – Lost Ruins of Arnak
  • IGA Family:
    • Multiplayer – Lost Ruins of Arnak
    • Two Player – My City
    • Solo – Under Falling Skies
  • a la carte (best card game) – Fantasy Realms
  • Golden Geek Family:
    • Light Game – MicroMacro: Crime City
    • Medium Game – Lost Ruins of Arnak
    • Heavy Game – Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion
  • Dice Tower – The Crew
  • Meeples Choice Awards:
    • Beyond the Sun
    • Lost Ruins of Arnak
    • Dune: Imperium

Clearly, the most honored game of the year was Lost Ruins of Arnak. It took two major awards (the DSP and IGA), got an SdJ nomination, and also won the Golden Geek and MCA awards. In addition, it won the Dice Tower Best Strategy game category, giving it very close to a clean sweep. Congratulations to designers Michaela Stachova and Michal Stach, as well as the entire creative team of publisher CGE, for coming up with a game that delighted so many of us.

Posted in Reviews | Tagged | 2 Comments

Fantasy Realms Wins 2020 a la carte Award

Posted on October 28, 2021 by huzonfirst

Every year, Fairplay magazine conducts the a la carte award, in which their readers choose their favorite card game of the year.  This is a very good award, which consistently rewards excellent games.  The results for 2020 were recently announced and the winner is Fantasy Realms.  Even though this game was originally released by WizKids in 2017 in the English speaking world, this isn’t really a surprising result.  Strohmann Games released the game in Germany last October, and it’s been a big success since then.  It was a finalist for the Kennerspiel award and finished in the top 10 for the DSP award, so it was clearly one of the leading card games of the year.

The a la carte winner from 2019 was The Crew and the game’s sequel, The Crew: Mission Deep Sea, finished second this year.  So Thomas Sing and Kosmos almost had back to back titles with this series.

Here are the top ten finishers for the a la carte, together with the game’s designers.  More so than usual, there are a number of games that were released earlier than 2020 in the English speaking world that are honored this year for their German editions.  This is probably a trend that we’ll continue to see in future years.

  1. Fantasy Realms (Bruce Glassco)
  2. The Crew: Mission Deep Sea (Thomas Sing)
  3. Point Salad (Molly Johnson, Robert Melvin, Shawn Stankewich)
  4. The 7th Continent (Ludovic Roudy, Bruno Sautter)
  5. Riftforce (Carlo Bortolini)
  6. Wild Space (Joachim Thome)
  7. The Fox in the Forest (Joshua Buergel)
  8. Kompromat (Rob Fisher, Adam Porter)
  9. Spirits of the Wild (Nick Hayes)
  10. Spukstaben (Moritz Dressler)
Posted in Reviews | Tagged | Leave a comment

Dale Yu – Review of Art Robbery

Posted on October 28, 2021 by Dale Yu

Art Robbery

  • Designer: Reiner Knizia
  • Publisher: Helvetiq
  • Players: 2-5
  • Age: 8+
  • Time: 15 minutes
  • Played with review copy provided by Helvetiq

art robbery

Art Robbery was the game that most interested me from my pre-SPIEL research of the Helvetiq games.  While I’ve always had a soft spot for these lighter family oriented games, this one comes from a more established designer, one certain Dr. Reiner Knizia.  I usually like the games from the other Gaming Doctor, so I was quick to request a chance to play it.

Continue reading →

Posted in Essen 2021, Reviews | Leave a comment

2020 Meeples Choice Awards Results Announced

Posted on October 27, 2021 by huzonfirst

The Meeples Choice Awards for the 2020 calendar year have been announced.  The voters’ three favorite games from last year are:

BEYOND THE SUN
LOST RUINS OF ARNAK
DUNE: IMPERIUM

Hallertau and Nivadellir were close behind, falling, respectively, 1 and 2 votes behind the winners.  Anno 1800 received strong support as well.  Also in the top 10 were Praga Caput Regni, Faiyum, Pandemic Legacy: Season 0, and the Isle of Cats.

The MCAs were the first taste of success for the designers of the winning games.  For Beyond the Sun’s Dennis Chan and Arnak’s Michal Stach and Michaela Stachova (aka Elwen and Min), their wins come from their first published designs!  Dune’s Paul Dennen has had earlier success with his Clank! Games, but this is his first significant Game of the Year award.  Congratulations to each of them for earning this honor so early in their careers.  Congrats as well to the publishers of the winning games:  Rio Grande, CGE, and Dire Wolf.

In contrast to the winners, quite a few veteran designers continued their run of success with the MCA’s.  Reiner Knizia has the most MCA nominated games and My City represents his 47th nomination, which is just an incredible total.  #2 on the list is Martin Wallace and he earned his 25th MCA nomination for Anno 1800.  Other established designers who did well include Stefan Feld (Bonfire was his 17th nomination), Uwe Rosenberg (Hallertau was his 16th), Michael Schacht (Iwari was his 12th nomination and his first since 2008!), Friedemann Friese (Faiyum was his 11th), and Alexander Pfister (who earned his 10th nomination for CloudAge).

It was another near miss for Hallertau, which also lost the IGA Multiplayer Game of the Year award in a tiebreaker with Arnak.  Better luck next year, Uwe!

Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment